This Is Not a Bus Stop: It's a RooOOOAAADDD TRIIIIIIPPP!!! (part one)

So, the road trip in question actually went down about a month ago (it’s how I got here, to live amongst the trees!) but I didn’t write about it a month ago. I wrote about it now! Better late than never? Better late that never!

First Rule of Road Trip: Upon leaving, shout, “WOOOOOO ROAD TRIIIIIIP!!!!!!” (Kind of like an inverse “First Rule of Fight Club”)

Wa-hOOO Road Triiiiip!

Second Rule of Road Trip: As road trip progresses, shout, “WOOO ROAD TRIIIIIIP!!!” intermittently until phrase loses all meaning and enthusiasm, becoming a hollow shell of what it once was. At this point, you have made it to your destination!

woo...ro...road trip...

Just kidding! Road trips are awesome from start to finish.

Just kidding – sometimes you get stuck in traffic or your tent blows down or you REALLY have to pee but feel bad stopping the car because you were the one who said you had to pee the LAST time and NO ONE wants to be “that guy”.

But actually, road trips are 90% awesome. 9/10 – would recommend.

California Road Trip was actually my SECOND road trip of the summer, if you’ll believe it, and in a couple days I shall head out on my third! First road trip was Minnesota to Arizona, second was San Diego to Seattle, and third will be Seattle to Minnesota. Wondering what that looks like? So was I!

To the Google Maps!

Basically a giant triangle-ish lookin’ loop around the American West. Cool. Today we’ll be focusing in on that lovely West Coast-Best Coast bit. And away we goooooooo….

To kick off our journey, my friend, her brother, and I drove inland, cutting east of LA to visit beautiful Joshua Tree National Park. Geographically beautiful, anyway. As we turned into the campsite, we noticed that almost every spot was empty, except for a lone pickup truck claiming space down the hill. This brought us to our first decision of the trip (many more were to come, making it clear that three “go with the flow” types are possibly not the best at choosing a flow to go with).

In a rare move for the group though, Sam had a definitive plan. “We should pick that open one at the top of the hill, it looks like the best place to throw a Frisbee!” So, of all possible empty spaces to set up a tent, we chose the flattest, highest, and most exposed. About halfway through setting up camp, we realized one of the (what we soon discovered to be) many reasons that Joshua Tree peak offseason is in July. Our tent, bless its heart, was doing what it could to retain a semblance of Tentness, but every ten seconds or so a gust of wind containing the fury of a thousand desert gods would come bowl it over. The tent–pancake-tent ballet played out for some time as we decided whether it was worth taking everything down and moving to a better site (which in this case would have been literally any of them). In the end, however, we decided that surrounding and filling the tent with large boulders was the way to go.

Poor tent

Ingenious Boulder Plan in action

Epic Tarp Cape

After the War of the Winds, it occurred to us that we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. What to do? We bee-lined to the nearest grocery store (not actually the best thing to do – kids, don’t go to the grocery store hungry). It was somewhere between arrival and a cart full of s’mores ingredients, kabob skewers, s’more skewers, beer, assorted campfire food, hard cider, and an open box of s’more poptarts (we decided we wanted to compare s’mores poptarts to actual s’more and then decided there’s no time like the present!) that we realized the error of our ways. We also realized that we were too hungry to care, probably somewhere between the first and second s’mores poptart. More importantly, time was a’wastin. We only had one afternoon in Joshua Tree and so far we had spent it fighting a tent and eating our way through Walmart.

Not a second to lose, we dropped off the food, grabbed the six-pack of cider, and took off towards a promising-looking hike. That is, we fully intended to take off towards a promising-looking hike. Until we saw the sign. “Giant Boulders.” My inability to pass up anything sounding even remotely climbable kicked in. We decided to check it out. A few hours later, I came down from the boulders to my friends chilling on a rock, drinking hard cider. They had initially followed me up, then realized what happens when one puts a Rachel on an incline. Namely, I just sorta auto-pilot up.

Atop the Giant Boulders...accurate sign was accurate

Picture I took while waiting for friends to catch up...sort of a "Where's Waldo" situation

I also had a lot of time to take selfies attempting to convey how ludicrously windy it was

In any case, we came to terms with the fact that we would not be going on a five-mile hike through the desert in July (not much mourning occurred, turns out) and went back to camp for a campfire feast and beautiful sunset. We celebrated the fact that our tent was somehow still standing and tent-shaped with more s’mores poptarts. Man I love s'mores poptarts.

Yes, that's a cactus

Next big stop post-Joshua Tree was San Fransisco, which we unanimously found overpriced. While this remains my most lasting impression of the city, there were some highlights worth mentioning. Fist: the arcade museum – a place where the full history of things people are willing to put change in a slot to see is on display. Some of the older ones included “The Song of the Prairie”, which displayed animatronic farting cowboys, and “The Opium Den”, which we decided against spending the dime on. There were quite a few “test your strength” and fortune-telling options, as well as the more modern pinball and racing games. Generally a fun time.

"If you are easily offended do not play this machine"

Man, look at all those enticing career opportunities for the ladies!

The other highlight was also unplanned (we had a bit of a theme going in that regard). When we were looking around for places to stay and suggestions for what to do in the city, one contact mentioned that there would be a parade going on the day we left. We were only in San Francisco for one day (Friday) and had planned to leave Saturday morning for a slow meander up the coast to our next destination, only a few hours away. Intrigued by the parade idea, though, we decided to push back the loose departure time to around noon. The parade began at 10:30am, we left after 2pm. The parade was not over. Mostly because San Francisco boasts one of the largest Pride parades on earth. The hours spent standing on some scaffolding parade and (more often) people-watching made our stop-over in the city well worth the time. Speedos, glitter, rainbow body paint, tutus, and fairy wings were common attire.